(November 18, 2011 — Fairfax, VA). Virginia Tech University has agreed to revise policies and protocols regarding parental notification of potentially suicidal students as a result of a lawsuit brought by partner Gary Mims over the suicide death of student Daniel Kim of Reston.
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Sickels, Frei & Mims is relocating to 3925 Chain Bridge Road, Suite 402 in Fairfax, VA as of December 28, 2011. Our phone number (703-925-0500) and fax number (703) 925-0501) will remain the same.
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Fairfax attorneys Gary Brooks Mims was named to the list of “Legal Lions” by Northern Virginia Magazine, which recently published a roster of the top personal injury and criminal lawyers in the region.
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Patient goes to Prince William Hospital for throat surgery, and is discharged a year later with both legs amputated above the knees.
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The Fairfax, Virginia law firm of Sickels, Frei & Mims has earned a Top Tier, Best Law Firm Ranking by US News and World Report in its first-ever publication of law firm rankings. The firm was ranked Top Tier for Personal Injury and Top Tier for Medical Malpractice among all of the law firms in the Washington Metropolitan Area.
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With the near omnipresent discussion about Tort Reform, one can’t help but begin to think that there are too many “frivolous lawsuits” being filed, and even won. Just about the only law suits the news reports on are the ones where someone got a ridiculous verdict for a tiny accident. Are these true? Maybe some of them. But, by and large, they are exaggerated or have missing facts that the news didn’t bother to include. Most people do not realize that there are methods in place to keep truly frivolous suits from being filed – and certainly from going to a jury and being won. But that’s another blog for another time.
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Medical malpractice recently cost a Woodbridge, VA woman her leg. The 57-year old Prince William County woman checked into the hospital for routine knee replacement surgery. In preparing the femur, the surgeon drilled all of the way through the back of the bone and severed her artery. Attempts to repair the artery were unsuccessful and the woman’s leg had to be amputated. The defense argued that the injury was simply a known risk of the procedure. HSFM partner Gary Brooks Mims successfully argued that the surgeon used excessive force when drilling and that his negligence violated the standard of care. The case settled for $1.275 million, which will enable the woman to modify her home and to acquire necessary mobility aids to accommodate her life without her leg.
The waiver. Everyone knows it. We’ve all signed one. If you want to engage in an activity (little league, summer camp, high school sports or triathlon, for example), chances are someone is going to want you to sign away all your rights.
In 1890, the Virginia Supreme Court addressed the issue of waivers in Johnson’s Adm’x v. Richmond and Danville R.R. Co., 86 Va. 975 (1890) and ruled that such waivers were not valid. In quintessential 19th century language, the Court reasoned that “to hold that it was competent for one party to put the other parties to the contract at the mercy of its own misconduct…can never be lawfully done where an enlightened system of jurisprudence prevails. Public policy forbids it, and contracts against public policy are void.
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Reston, Virginia father William Kim wants to prevent other families from enduring the indescribable pain of losing a child to suicide. His son, Virginia Tech senior Daniel Kim, died in 2007 from a gunshot wound to the head – just weeks after the school had received an email from one of their son’s friends detailing his suicidal behaviors.
In our lawsuit filed last week, Virginia Tech and its administrators are charged with negligence – not for his suicide – but for failing to follow its own published protocols for dealing with a suicide emergency. The school’s protocols require that any student threatening suicide “be seen by the psychologist on call.”
Daniel Kim was never seen by the psychologist on call or any trained mental health professional or contacted by anyone from the University and, sadly–the warning email was never shared with Kim’s parents.
The parents of a Virginia Tech suicide victim want to know why school officials didn’t tell them about emails the school received detailing their son’s suicidal behaviors. In our lawsuit filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court, the family of Daniel Kim is charging Virginia Tech and its administrators with gross negligence for failing to follow the university’s published protocols for dealing with suicide warnings.
The Reston family is also asking the university to assist in the passage of legislation, to be called The Daniel Kim Act, which will require all public universities in the state to notify parents when a threat to the safety of their children is present.
“Daniel Kim’s death was preventable. If Virginia Tech had followed its own published protocols for dealing with a suicide emergency, Daniel would still be alive today,” said Kim’s attorney Gary Brooks Mims. “Further, if the university had notified Mr. Kim of the emails declaring an emergency, he would have been by his son’s side within hours and sought appropriate and urgent medical care.”
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